i have accepted many things from rose that the captive shippers doubt about what to but i will gladly do that in the interest of getting an agreement. that they will cooperate and your job will become easier and mr. forcari can worry about 75 years from now. you understand what i am saying. that is a desperately important process. every single shipper who uses a road is affected by whether this is a fair system or not. that lie in your hands. and hours. i will keep at it. you will keep at it. i'm glad you were there. fairness is fairness and that is

what makes america work. with that unique statement, i will adjourn the hearing. but you both very much. >> thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> there will be a forum on terror hosted by the american enterprise is to it -- institute at live coverage will start of 11:00 a.m. on c-span. ♪ >> this week on "q &a" our guest is warren brown. >> warren brown, you have written about automobiles for 30 years for the washington post."

first question, how involved is the u.s. government in determining what we drive in this country? >> very involved from the regulatory the boy. you have safety and emissions controls and that sort of thing. most of those things are determined in terms of the goal of reaching an emissions. , those things are determined by the federal government. how the car companies reach those goals is pretty much up to them as long as they reach them. safety of fax structure -- if that's structured, materials, development, emissions controls. the whole of you -- fuel economy things affect the shape to the overall size and mass of the cars.

the government is very involved. >> how did you get started reviewing automobiles? >> i had a very wise colleague at the washington post to tell me that if i wanted to make about the washington post, i had to develop a french judges, find something that no one else was doing and do i and live with it. that is what i did. i was on the national desk at the post when i petitioned to join a business staff much food to the chagrin of my national desk editor who thought i was throwing away my career. i was lucky enough to have a french ships with frank swoboda who thought i was crazy but debris space to be crazy so that

helped them when did you first get interested in automobiles that i have always been interested in or automobiles. i grew up in new orleans in the late 1940's and 1950's and 1960's when i had to sit at the back of the bus. that always bothered me. it always bothered my father. boarded a bus and having to sit behind a sign that said," no colored beyond this point." freedom cable when my parents and black labor is bought their own cars. they could drive the things and that was power. that was freedom. cars have always meant more to me than the sum of their parts. they were a way to escape vents the other world than they were also a way to reformate to see my parents in charge of something rather than sitting behind inside. >> how did your parents explain to you back in those days when

there was a division between white and black? >> they didn't. , really. if i will tell you it interesting story -- i went to catholic school. i can walk from high school one day complaining to my father who was a scientist and researcher, complaining to him that one of my priests was a racist with happen to be a priest that taught me geometry and chemistry. my father did not say anything. he told me to get my chemistry and geometry box. he asked to show him where i was in the book. i showed them. in the chemistry book you want me to work a formal and i could i do it. he asked me to show him where

was the geometry. i showed him and. he looked at me and said the park might be a racist but you are stupid and as long as you're stupid, it does the matter if he is a racist said dunn, home and tell me he is a racist unless you can do the work. that stuck with me. that sums up the entire way my parents dealt with rates in new orleans. it was yes it exists but it is no excuse. we don't care. if somebody calls you the n word or you don't know what you're doing or if you are not trying or be having properly, that's how we were reared. some people might call that boris what -- boardwalk --bour gois, but that is how we raised our children as well.

base your life and what you think of yourself rather than what other people think of you. >> what did you do differently after your father said you were stupid? >> i never came home and told about somebody was a racist. if i had a complaint, i made sure that i had researched the complete their early before bringing it to him. the best defense was to know what you are talking about before you talked to him in his house. i studied. i stopped worrying about what i thought the press thought of me. i tried to figure out what he was trying to teach me in the academic subject matter. >> maybe i read this -- that

blacks could not take communion in the same churches as whites? >> this church has changed. we used to live in a certain section of new orleans. there was a safe mary's catholic church there. it was around roman street or another street. we could attend to that church but we normally have to stand in the back of the church behind allied. i always thought that was wrong. i was a cheeky fellow and sometimes the priest would not serve until the whites were served. my late brother daniel would slap me in the back of that he .

normally we went to black catholic churches. holy redeemer catholic church was outside of the french quarter. those were black catholic churches. they were mostly run by priests and blessed sacrament and a and spent a did you ever confront anybody in that church as to why you had to stay in the back? >> i did. they said it was customer and i have to learn obedience. understandably, many blacks who grew up with may and were baptized catholic left the catholic church. even people in my own family.

i never did. i married a woman who never did because we never really identified the teachings of the church with the way some people practice teachings. we were able to separate that. i had good trade paper it will remember that on the good friday at holy redeemer and i think than none -- and i think we have gone to morning mass and we were falling out of the church and white kids in the park across the street which was a white only park started calling the sister and nigger-lover and we

took offense to that. we all got into fisticuffs. we thought we were heroes. we got to the classroom and she told us how disappointed in us she was. that we had learned none of the teachings of the church and nothing about forgiveness, nothing about turning the cheek. -- turning the other cheek. >> when we first acid to come to the interview, we were going to mostly talk about the automobile stuff but also a kid the operation. >> i have had two kidney transplants. one from my wife and one from a very good friend. both trends plants -- both transplants -- the kidney is

functioning ok but not enough to keep me off of dialysis. it taught me that she should take advantage of life now. you better try to figure out what is important now. could i have learned this lesson another way without going to pay and suffering? yes probably. i don't regret it and not one bit. >> when did you have the operation? >> the first one was in 1998. that was my wife's transplant. give to may. -- did to me. the second one was in 2001 from martha hamilton co is one of the funniest but sternness people you'll ever meet. we worked together for a long time.

she said, "look, dumbly, you need another kid may. i have two and you could have won." it went on like that. we did a book together. in 2001. at the behest of the washington post. we will probably have to revisit that and i suspect we probably will. >> how long have you been back and dialysis? almost two years now. did the other kidney failure? >> it stopped functioning as well as it should be functioning. to avoid the other problems, i chose to go back and tells them what will you have another transplant? >> i don't know.

my youngest daughter is a medical reporter wants to give me her kidney. ims 62 years old. i am doing quite well on dialysis this time around. i don't know if i want to put another life of someone i love and i love both of those other women and i love my daughter, i don't necessarily want to put another one of them at risk when i'm actually doing okay. >> how often do have to go for dialysis? >> i go for three days. the only thing it has meant for me is that have had to do something that i have been criticized for not doing which is planning.

i will probably do dialysis at the american hospital in paris. in order to do that, i have to plan out. the only thing this has done is make me grow up. before, i had an assistant who basically shakes her head because i never really tell her anything. she figures it out. i have begun to tell people things. it makes life easier for me and everyone else. >> i read your book and i can go without asking you something i learned in the book. if you have a kidney transplant, they don't remove your other kidneys? >> no, i made 4-packer right now. >> does that surprise you? >> no, because removing anything from the body and balls another

piece of surgery. the medical practice in its infinite wisdom would prefer not to have to do with extra bit of surgery if it is not bothering you. they don't bother me. they up have apparently shrugged or atrophied. >> we have a clip from a politics and prose talk that your donor had back in november of 2002. >> i no longer worry about dying to as much. you learn that you will die. regardless of whether the operation is a success. how long will you live? that is a much harder question to answer. i have been spending a lot of time lately tried to answer that. you try to love and live and

work as hard as possible. deal aboutake a big it and you just go on. >> i don't know if i look the same but that is still my thinking. mark that is white and i am black we all have the same color blood. both >> that is the same comment

of a newspaper, black and white and red all over th. what did the race standpoint have an affect on your book? >> the impact of race was that my siblings and died, i had six brothers and sisters and we are now a said blinker before, we could not have had better parents. i think about this every day. we were lucky in our choice of parents. i had a father who had every reason to be angry, to be an angry black man. he served in world war two, fought in world war two, was a medic, a u.s. army medic, came home, tried to get into medical school, too late university, l s u, those schools were not

accepting blacks in their classrooms. he went to a xavier university premed. he was taken under a wing and became a teacher in catholic schools in louisiana, teaching science. he told made that if we could not become a doctor, maybe he could trade future doctors. the top for a long time in the black in new orleans public schools. even when i m overseas and i may wind up in france or somewhere

else and i see a black person behind me and i wonder if they came from the united states and ask them where they grew up. if they grew up in new orleans, i ask that they knew a daniel brown thomas sr. and they said he taught them. that gives me the greatest amount of pride, that he chose not to hate. the chose to take mother katharine drexel's guidance and he did. >> you are sitting at a dinner party. does someone asked you what your favorite car is worth about her

kidney operation? >> usually about a car and my response is that i don't have a favorite car. i have a lot of gigolo. -- i am an automotive gigolo. i like the alterative powered electric cars right now. i love diesel. my third car is one that can give you the most horsepower, the most torque, with the least fuel consumption. give me a car like that and i am happy. >> who built the best cars? >> everybody now builds very good cars, honestly. people were getting on the toyota case recently during the summer. that is primarily because they discovered that toyota was human and they can make mistakes. i had known that all along.

i have been saying that for the past 10 or 12 years that they make mistakes. look at what toyota consumers say in japan. in the united states, we had given toyota the mantle of infallibility that somehow they did not make errors which was nonsense. the toyota problem is not that just they started losing a grasp of quality. their problem was that they started losing a grasp of their myth of infallibility. they had always made mistakes. the media have always ignored them by and large. as a result, so did our government. toyota is as good as toyota as always been and they make as many mistakes as they have always made general motors which was always the bad boy of automotive did have that quality.

they made lots of errors. the error was not the physical error. the error was the management error of pretending that you're not making mistakes and to have consumers suffering. and being arrogant about it. it makes people angry. and when they become angry, they remember that for a long time. the current gm was not just born in 2008 when we have the financial fallout. the current gm actually started coming about in the late 19th 90s when they started paying more attention to quality. they started paying attention to how -- to their consumers. the gm cars that you see now that everyone is raving about,

that did not just happen in 2008. that started happening 10 years ago. now that they have learned the painful lesson, will it continue under new management? will they understand that the car is the thing. here is open. >> how many people do what you do in american newspapers? >> it is hard to tell, honestly. >> i am a lot before a number but there are not many. >> i am an odd fish. dan neal at "the new york times is an odd fish and the person that usa today. the three of us have this idea that the car industry is not just the sum of its parts. it is not just the latest new

delhi. there is a movement going on here. i bring all of my historical baggage to coverage. people ask me why i am willing to give general motors and ford a break. that is personal and i have no problem admitting it. i give them a break because they gave my people a break. it is justifiable to have an argument that said we would not have a black middle class had we not had general motors, ford, and chrysler. go to detroit today to the old automotive neighborhoods, the difference in those neighborhoods from the 1950's and 1960's is that the blacks that were working in the plants than it did have a dream.

they wanted their kids to run the plants. they wanted their kids to design cars and to the lawyers and so forth. and that is what their kids became. one of our chief farming correspondents at the washington post is a guy who grew up in a uaw family. does that affection translate into turning a blind eye to their families? no, i was probably more harsh on them for their failings than people who fancy themselves as being objective. we would have been throwing away our legacy as black americans and our legacy as americans.

the idea that you would throw away manufacturing superiority because you don't care what you are producing, the idea that you would throw away leadership and innovation infuriated me. i was angry with those companies for a long time. at the same time, i was willing to give them a break once i was convinced, as i became convinced, that you had people will actually cared about turning out good products. >> i tried to find all kind of numbers. let me ask you can help on this. which country in the world today manufactures the most automobiles? >> i think you have to say japan but mostly for export.

china is coming up very fast. we are still in there but not nearly as much as we used to be. >> how to greet relate to tschida? are overican companies there building automobiles? every company accept chrysler. general motors may be the biggest company in china right now. i did not realize until i went to shanghai about it there could be something called a good buick. i was looking at these bewick's and said i did not get it. why are they making great bewick's in china but not at home? it was about what the chinese buyer demanded.

if you could afford to buy any kind of car, it says something about you. honoringface is an important thing so general motors of china stepped up to the plate and general motors' north america did not do that. gm north america and gm china are one now. we are getting the new buick regal which is an excellent midsized car. i credit gm china for somehow transferring its culture to gm's north america and reinvigorating gm north america. >> how far have you traveled to see a manufacturing plant. >> i have been all over the world. i have been to kazakhstan.

i have been all over there looking at cars in moscow and looking at throttle industry, brazil -- looking at their automobile industry, brazil. western europe as a second home. germany and france, it is a fascinating industry. all of that travel -- whoever said that travel is the best way to eradicate your biases, was correct. >> i think you have to wait 13

years in germany to get a car. >> they were awful. >> five years later we went back there and they were gone. >> you see that in kazakhstan and russia. about two years after the wall came down, i went to munich and interviews with bmw. there were maybe three or four tr whiteabants outside of bmw hair cutters. i asked the executives was with that? they said those are people from east germany applied for a job -- applying for a job that bmw in munich. the bmw executive said they could not hire many of them

because it was a culture shock. apparently, some of these guys from east germany were not used to something breaking and they shut down the line to back the next day. that did not happen that bmw. >> how you protect yourself from s beingcmoozed -- from being schmoozed to death? >> i see myself as potentially a servant. i am serving the people out there who are buying cars. i am their servant. that basically means that i have to keep them happy.

a good serve to keep the people being served happy. i have to keep them happy. i have to look out for their interest and they tell me what their interests are. from aot be anybody's boy manufacturing viewpoint. i have to serve them. ,f they don't like something they are not the least bit shy about letting me know. i run a whole bunch of expensive cars, maybe three or four in a row, people tell me there is a recession and we cannot afford those cars. the atomic to write about something that we can afford -- they tell me to write about something we can afford. they keep me honest.

my readers to be honest. the buying public keeps me on this. they don't like it, they let me know. if you are smart in this business, you will listen. >> what is your take on general motors as 50% owned by the american people? >> if they weren't 50% owned by the american people, we would not be talking about general motors. it was a shock to see the company go into bankruptcy. it was a shot that you get over really quickly. i was not a word about the ability to bankruptcy because i know that the work gm had been doing a new products the past six or seven years and i liked the product. i like to their product schedules. by the time gm caught up with the bankruptcy, it was a completely gender difference

general motors. the spirit of the place had completely changed. there was a time when s frankwoboda was working with me and we would go to detroit to do interviews at gm and you could hear the shutters coming down. we could not speak to engineers with having general motors public relations people around. nowadays, they are calling you. the stylists are calling you. the engineers are calling you. there is a sense of pride at the place. they really believe in what they are doing. management finally has got a common-sense enough to understand that if you hire someone to be an engineer, maybe

you should let her be an engineer. let her do her best work. and pay her for it and encourage her. that gm was paying for the sense of the father. sin --s of the father. for richard wagoner, he did everything he could possibly do. i'm not saying that because he is on the board of "the washington post but he did everything he possibly do putting most of his emphasis on improved product quality and improved products, pouring billions of dollars into it, taking massive loans. that part of his reign was

successful. the part of his reign that was a failure was that he was too nice a guy he just could not bring himself to shut plants as quickly as they should have been shot he could not bring himself to get rid of divisions that should have been gotten rid of. he could not bring himself to fire people that he should have fire. so he got fired. not a fair light. >> what is your take a wideford did not have to get money from the government? >> because when you are already had over heels in debt which ford was of the time of the venice of collapse, you will not rush out to put yourself and more debt. they have mortgaged everything opel.luded op leakthe they have the good fortune of failing before gm and chrysler.

it had the common sense of listening to whoever said we have to bring in new management. they brought in allen mulally and the company did have a common sense to leave him alone and let him do what he does. ford management did not want to cut and he threw out things they did not want to throw out. he borrowed lots of money, but poured it all led to new products. the new product is good product. it was just beginning to come out just as the recession hit. ford could not borrow more money, they had fixed the problems that got them into trouble. could they have used the government's money? yes, but there were wise enough to save that they don't want to

do that. we got a favorable blow back on that which was ford can do it. they almost went to bankruptcy long before general motors. there were terminal lobby for general motors and had fixed all that and had borrowed their way into new product. they could not borrow new money and were smart enough not to take a handout that was offered them. >> looking back on chrysler, why did dimer first by them -- ad why didaimler first by the f why didiat get into it? >> playing a go. pla --in ego. chrysler had been trying to shop itself around.

since the 1980's. they were looking for a partner. bob eaton and lee iacocca had done a good job in making chrysler sellable. the use the first bailout movie -- monday in the 1980's and brought chrysler back and developed a good portfolio, making chrysler a renewed moneymaker. daimler-chrysler, the management there thought they could use chrysler to expand in the united states and everywhere acceptex

--cept you have the same thing that happens in a dysfunctional family. sisters play and they go off and they are doing -- they're saying that chrysler is the problem child but that your brain damage to the family. some people accompanied said they will lead to anything for them. they did not what chrysler near anything that said mercedes- benz. it was a dysfunctional family and it was purely ego. fi comesat. -- a fiat. the only reason they what chrysler is because of the dodge truck. fiat does not really have entry into the truck market. the truck market will start going down as the economy starts

growing again. gives entry into chrysler it some of the best pickup trucks in the world. yay for fiat. the media looked at it as chrysler leading small cars. 500 the y get the fiat just when gas prices go down. that makes the car a little less of a deal in the united states for chrysler. it makes the big dodge trucks agreed deal forfiat. >> 10 years from now, project from what use have seen about oil, gas and the electric car. i have seen the right not so many great things about the prius. >> the prius is not so much

pottery as the idea of that the technology is the answer. to our energy conservation problems. it is not. when you look at the beginning to end of what it takes to make a prius and put on the road and maintain a, you are spending more in terms of energy that you are a hummer. that is the reality. i love electric cars, particularly if you can get something like a tesla going, but even a little mitsubishi is a great little neighborhood car. no pollution. but that energy has to come from someplace. if you want to know where the energy comes from, look at the

mountainside that has been stripped. what are we looking at in 10 years? we are looking at a combination of things. you are looking at a gas- electric and i hope we are looking at more intelligent uses for compressed natural gas and propane. we are probably still looking at a majority market of fossil fuel spurtes. it would be more intelligent use. gasoline and diesel engines and computer-controlled gasoline and diesel engines, lighter weight materials and that sort of thing. there is no silver bullet out there. if you want a silver bullet and you want to scare people, one of nuclear? why not, it works. you go over to france and a lot

of their activity is nuclear- powered electricity. it works. why not put it in a car? never mind [laughter] back to the personal stuff when you were in seventh grade and you started writing about governor jim a davis, the so-called singing the governor. what was it in your life in you which -- in louisiana in the wa ninth ward that cause you to write about him? >> the federal government said schools had to be segregated.

the governor shut down the black schoolteachers. >> why? >> i never had the opportunity to ask him. >> he came from as poor as you can't beat them and maybe racial spite. >> maybe racial spite. >> i think he was playing for both sides. it was treacly political. he did the care about my father. this was around christmas. my father is a very proud man. >> is still alive? >> no, he died about 10 years ago. he was not a person to ask for and desperahandouts. he probably just would have gone

bankrupt. i saw the pain and hurt in his eyes and knew that he would but say anything about it. i wrote to governor davis and called in the racist and told of how he was hurting our family with his policies. the mistake i made was sending a letter without letting my father refers. read it first. he was angry but he was proud. >> did you ever get a better? >>no, we didn't not getting the answer from him or any of his cronies bennett here is a column you wrote in july of 2007. i have often been accused of stridency.

>> is that admitting too much? >> probably. >> i don't know if you remember that column. what led to you started a column like that? >> i probably wanted to beat somebody up. it was a diatribe prelude to a diatribe about is that you? >> yes, i did that essay with pride and contrition. >> why with pride and contrition? >> i have often been accused of opening the mouth what i should have kept it shut and i stand guilty. sometimes with contrition because maybe sometimes i should

have kept it shot. ut. as they say in the catholic church, it is easier to get forgiveness than permission. [laughter] >> in your book, you dedicate the book to a lot of women. at the or sun. have a kids you have? >> i have three kids, two daughters and my son back to what are they doing of their lives? >> the oldest girl is a partner in a law firm. the other girl is the chief medical correspondent. my son has chronic epilepsy and a lot of brain damage as a result of that so we try to work with him to get him into an independent living program said that he could have more of a life for himself. >> and your wife mary and did

you that kid a back in the late 1990's? >> yes. was 1998.t >> what impact did that have of her giving up her kidney? >> you know, she is a funny woman. she was very, very happy. she was insistent on getting her kidney. regardless of the pay your medical inconvenience, it did not cross her mind. she loves me, gives me a kid become a ticket. the impact was on losing a kid it. i never saw anyone so devastated. she was absolutely devastated. that her transplant only lasted for two years or so. she was depressed for a long time. >> after it didn't work?

>> it worked for two years and the stopped working. the hardest time in my life was coming home and telling mary m. but i was losing her kidney. i knew how devastating it would be for her and it was. it was devastating for her. that told me a lot about her. and that she was fired because there were several other women friends were going to be a kidney. shei can't mention because is an official from chile. she is in our kitchen with mary and cooking something and mary ann said she was happy our

friend was giving a kidney. >> what about the impact of march the hamilton when the second kidney fails? >> she is one of god's children, really and truly. martha and i were working together for a couple of years after she gave me the kidney. it was like having a second wife. the office. i was going out to lunch and should ask me where i was --

what was the way to eat and what i was going to drink. i took that seriously. when somebody physically gives you a part of them, they give you more than that. the recipient as a moral obligation to live up to that. the recipient has a moral obligation to do everything in his or her power to take care of their gifts. . that was another part of helping me to grow, understanding that not only did mary ann and martha give me a physical part of themselves, they gave me something else of themselves and i owe them. i owe them as far as i have to

return that gift of love in hell i be able and how i take care of myself. -- in how i am able to take care of myself. it is far different from receiving a car parts. it is not like changing a filter. you are receiving the part of a life. you are receiving a part of a life. by asking -- by being the recipient, you have to are those people how you live and that is very real. >> another interesting note in the book, when you're the end of life renal failure, medicare has to pay for it? >> it is complicated.

all the insurers want to know how long have been a dialysis. the private insurance company cut off and medicare takes over. >> even if you're not 65? >> it doesn't matter what you are doing or how rich you are. both when you talk about a public health care plan cut by a modern public health care plan. 95% of the people who are receiving dialysis right now are on a federal health-care program. i go to dialysis three days a week, 3.5 hours per session, that is $800 per session. medicare, for the most part, pays that or will be paying

that was my private insurance runs out. you have numerous other people who are not nearly as fortunate to have an employer like "the washington post." we are not rich. we are obama ready. ich./ bpeople have private insurance or have implied that that would take care of that. most of the people who are on dialysis today are funded by the federal government. i doubt seriously you will four and one of them who says they don't want the federal government paying for that. without it, we die. dialysis is now routine. you can schedule your life

around it. if you don't get it, you die. >> you mentioned earlier that your thinking of updating this book. what do you want to do? >> the question that is frequently asked me -- i was a poster child for the kidney transplant -- are you sure? you are not cured. if i dug a dialysis, i will die. what happens after the transplant? what it doesn't work out? do you hang your head and feel bad about it? how do you think about it? what i want to write about is that you have to look depth every moment, every gift of love as an ultimate gift. i have had two major gifts of love.

it has extended my life. it is extending my life now. what do you do with the extension? how to use the extension to make a difference? if you don't make a difference, what the value is the extension? someone will write about that. in the next book. i may do that with mark that if she is willing but if not, i will tried to do it alone. i hope i can do it with martha. >> warren brown has been our guest. this book is 2002 and you can still get it? >> you can still get it on the amazon. >> thank you for your time. >> thank you, i appreciate it. ♪ >> for a dvd copy of this

program, call 1-877 for free transcripts, visit us at qandq.org. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> coming up on "washington news and the day's your comments and questions. later today, republican senator lindsey graham on combating terrorism and his recent trip to afghanistan. today "washington journal," winner-take-all politics an